Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his very learned intervention in this debate. I agree with a lot of the comments he made in relation to proportional representation and how it would not be of any benefit to Canada in the way this country can be governed by having good, solid majority governments. As we are seeing with the way the House is functioning right now in a minority situation, it has been volatile and does not lend itself to the best governance of the country.
One of the things we want to talk about in fixing the democratic deficit, as my colleague already talked about, is engaging citizens. I wonder if the member could talk to some degree about how we as members of Parliament could better engage our constituents and talk to the people we represent. We do have these very large ridings. There are 308 ridings covering 30 million people. On average there are close to 100,000 people per riding.
My riding is the most populated and the second largest geographically in Manitoba. My riding has over 90,000 people. To drive across it one way takes five hours and to drive across it the other way takes three hours. There are a lot of issues to deal with in getting out to talk to people. We try to do that as members of Parliament in coffee shops, by having our town halls and getting out and engaging with people, but in a rural riding in particular the MP is not going to get to every farm, every fishing camp or see everybody who lives in every corner of the riding.
How do we engage those people? There are a lot of different ways to do it. We could have more direct democracy by allowing them to have more input on some issues through ballot questions, similar to what is done in some other countries. Having that type of engagement would give them the opportunity to express their views other than through voting for a particular party or person when election time rolls around, which on average is every four years.
I would appreciate it if the member would be kind enough to entertain us with some of the great ideas he brought forward.